"The House of Edges"
About "The House of Edges" is the second tale in the second episode of the thirteenth season of The Nosleep Podcast. In it, a woman living in a cliffside manor shares the stories of her fellow residents. Written by C.M. Scandreth, it has a runtime of 43:40 and was performed by Erika Sanderson, James Cleveland, Penny Scott-Andrews, David Ault, Addison Peacock, David Cummings, and Jesse Cornett. It is the 1557th tale overall on the podcast. Summary A woman, Liza, is forced to move into a boarding house built precariously on the edge of a cliff due to financial constraints. She has several mental problems and takes medication to help with the strain, which seems to work. At first wary of the house with its age, strange layout, crumbling fixtures, and unexplainable noises, she eventually settles into her room after getting it clean. Her fellow residents are odd and bizarre characters, whose stories she shares. Liza's neighbor in the next room, Mary, is an aging prostitute with a liking to smoke pipes. The pair bond over smoking in the garden every night as the latter relates tales of long-ago lovers, with the revelation that she still has a few regular clients. One night, Mary asks Liza if she's ever slept with a woman, to which she replies no. Later, Liza climbs to third floor balcony from where she can see into Mary's windows. Mary undresses and waits as the corpse of a dead sailor climbs out of the ocean and up the cliff to her. They make love and he pays her in gold from sunken ships before disappearing back into the sea. Liza realizes Mary was a making a pass at her so she wouldn't have to sleep with the sailor that night. On the first floor lives an old Polish undertaker, Petr. Looking almost dead himself, he serves only the small community of Poles that live in the town, embalming the bodies in his room before taking them off in a hearse for the burial service. Liza goes out into the garden one night and sees Petr dancing to polka with a woman in a yellow dress. They disappear into his bedroom. Over the next few nights, Liza sees him dancing with a different woman, but always in the same dress. The following morning, she sees a woman's body being delivered to him to be embalmed. Spying from the garden again, she sees Petr dress the corpse in the yellow gown before sitting down to dinner with it. Shortly after starting, the woman animates and they dance, before disappearing into his bedroom. The next morning, he drives the body away for burial. Directly above Liza lives a couple, Robbie and Ruby. Robbie leaves for work in the mornings and comes back late in the evening, while Ruby is only ever seen in the nighttime or on weekends. They constantly fight with each other and the relationship seems mildly abusive, but Liza decides to do nothing for the moment. One night, after hearing Ruby beg Robbie to stop while they have sex, she decides she has to end everything once and for all. Sneaking into the couple's apartment to see if Ruby is okay, she only finds it empty. About to leave, she suddenly hears Robbie coming home and hides in the bathroom while he steps into the shower and begins singing, only for his voice to raise in octaves until it sounds like Ruby is singing. Signaling her presence, Liza goes to lead Ruby out of the apartment before the latter reveals that she is Robbie during the day's work week and Ruby when she's off the job. Robbie is a dark shadow that possesses, transforms, and abuses her. In exchange, she is allowed to be herself sometimes. She begs Liza to tell no one. In the house's spire lives a thin, emo-looking man named Jeremy. He works as a butcher's apprentice and is constantly bringing bags of meat scraps home from work and to his room. Expressing confusion at this one day, Liza is invited to dinner by him. That evening, Jeremy wolfs down several large servings of the meat scraps before going out onto the balcony, where a portion of the house below opens like a mouth with bricks and glass shards for teeth. He regurgitates his meal into the mouth, which eats it happily before closing again. Jeremy reveals he must feed the house every once in a while to stop it from falling into the sea. Liza carries him to bed before cleaning up the dishes. Finally curious about how the house is able to stay upright and hold all the strange residents it does, Liza seeks out the building's landlord, Tama, who lives in the basement. The basement is full of cracks and constantly in danger of collapsing, which would sending the whole house falling into the sea. Tama reveals that house allows the strange people to live out their strange lives unjudged by modern society while asking for small favors in return. Liza realizes that the house fixes her mental problems and allows her to be normal. Tama mentions that it's time for her to pay back her end of the baragin. A large crack in the floor opens to reveal a dark pit. Tama asks her which resident must be fed to the house to save it from collapsing, to which she replies Petr. Now working as the house's record manager, Liza lives in Petr's old apartment and keeps tabs on the residents and their behaviors, her way of paying back being that she must make the difficult decision of which person to feed to the house when the crack in the basement gets too wide. Cast Erika Sanderson as Liza James Cleveland as Jeremy Penny Scott-Andrews as Mary David Ault as Tama Addison Peacock and David Cummings as Ruby/Robbie Jesse Cornett as Petr Category:Tales Category:Season 13 Category:C.M. Scandreth Category:Erika Sanderson Category:James Cleveland Category:Penny Scott-Andrews Category:David Ault Category:Addison Peacock Category:David Cummings Category:Jesse Cornett Category:Illustration Category:Naomie Ronke